Town Leadership
The Town Manager’s Office
The Town Manager
Dori A. Vecchio
When a street goes unplowed, when a permit stalls, or when a warrant article has to be turned into an actual line of the town budget, the person holding the machinery is an appointed professional rather than an elected one. Dori A. Vecchio is Auburn’s Town Manager. She is hired under contract by the five elected members of the Select Board, and the charter gives that same board the power to end the contract, which is the whole reason the job answers to voters at one remove instead of not at all.
What the office actually controls is worth being precise about. The Town Manager designates the town’s department heads, and the Select Board then votes to confirm or deny each designation, so hiring the person who runs Public Health or Public Works takes two rooms rather than one. The Manager builds the annual budget department by department and carries it forward, and the Select Board decides what reaches the Town Meeting warrant. Then 120 elected Town Meeting members vote it, and they can cut a line the other two rooms had agreed on. In October 2025 that Town Meeting amended the fiscal 2026 budget to $82,875,031, moving money into firefighter salaries, the police chief’s line, insurance and a salary reserve, one line item at a time.
The office is also where the town’s front door is kept open on purpose. The Town Manager’s Office runs the Citizens Leadership Academy, a spring series that takes twenty residents through the whole town government one department per night, from the budget to the police station to the DPW garage, and it accepts applicants at sixteen with a parent or guardian’s permission. The class ends at a Select Board meeting. In May 2026 the Auburn High School students who finished it stood up in front of the board and said what they had learned, and the Chair handed them their certificates.
So if you have a problem that is bigger than one phone call, the practical path usually runs through this office first, then to the board, then to Town Meeting. Knowing that order is most of knowing how to get something done in Auburn.
| Role | Town Manager (chief administrative officer) |
|---|---|
| Selection | Appointed by the Select Board under contract, not elected |
| Office | 102 Central Street, Auburn, MA 01501 |
| Phone | 508-832-7720 |
| Website | auburnma.gov |
What the Town Manager Does
- Runs the departments. Police, fire, public works, health, planning, recreation, the library, the senior center and the rest report up to the Town Manager, who designates most of their heads for the Select Board to confirm.
- Builds the budget. Each year the Manager proposes how the town will spend its money, then defends it before the Select Board, the Finance Committee, and Town Meeting.
- Answers to the board. The Manager serves under a contract with the elected Select Board and carries out the policies it sets.
- Reports to Town Meeting. Major spending and every bylaw still need the vote of the Town Meeting members elected from your precinct.
The Administration
- An Assistant Town Manager who is also the Director of Economic Development, Paul Dell’Aquila, works on what gets built and what opens along the town’s highway corridors.
- Department heads carry out policy, from plowing snow to inspecting restaurants, and are designated by the Manager and confirmed by the Select Board.
- The Select Board is the check: it hires the Manager, sets policy, and signs the warrants that put questions before Town Meeting.
- Boards and commissions, many of them appointed by the Select Board, decide questions like zoning, conservation, health regulation and licensing.
Contact & Engage
- Town Manager’s Office: 102 Central Street, Auburn, MA 01501. 508-832-7720.
- Town Hall: 104 Central Street, next door, open Monday 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Tuesday through Thursday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sign up for alerts: Alert Auburn is the town’s emergency notification system, linked from every page of the town website.
- Show up: the Select Board meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second and fourth Mondays at Town Hall, and the public is welcome.
Sources
Town of Auburn, Town Manager. Verified August 2026.
Town of Auburn, Citizens Leadership Academy. Verified August 2026.
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